The Day Time Stopped
by DandelionFunky
Summary: We all thought that we'd be killed by walkers. No one thought that our time would simply run out.


_Hi~! This is for the USS-Caryl Challenge on tumblr. I chose "__Natural disaster trope. Instead of the zombie apocalypse, some other country-wide/world-wide disaster has occurred." It's not exactly "natural" I suppose...but hey. The space time continuum going amuck is definitely a disaster. ~Dandelionfunky_

* * *

**The Day Time Stopped**

Bones.

Bones were all that remained.

Daryl Dixon stooped over the skeleton that had once been Merle Dixon, examining the marks on the skull that he himself provided mere weeks ago.

Daryl Dixon's brow furrowed.

This is wrong.

There are no teeth marks marring the bones, meaning his corpse wasn't eaten.

This is really fucking weird.

Nobody decomposes this fucking fast.

His clothes look brand fucking new. Clean as a whistle, gunshot holes mended. Somebody decided to waltz in after looting a Kohl's or wherever-the-fuck-Merle-gets-his-shit, pop those clothes on him, and waltz the fuck away?

No fucking way that happened.

Daryl frowned, running his hand along Merle's pant leg directly above the fibula. _'Specially not for Merle. _

Grabbing the shovel Daryl brought with him on the Triumph, the living Dixon begun to dig a grave for the departed one.

* * *

Glenn's watch stopped its ticking.

Carl had grey hairs hidden underneath his hat, which he now kept clamped down upon his scalp in horror.

Hershel Greene looked ten years younger, wisps of dirty blond locks beginning to sprout from his crown.

Rick was nowhere to be found.

* * *

Daryl's going crazy. He just knows it.

He's passed by both autumn and winter on his travels back to the prison.

Plus the Lincoln Memorial.

And the pyramids of Giza.

What the fuck.

Something is terribly wrong.

A cold wind blew past his face, both orange-hued leaves and spring blossoms whipping him in the face as he sped past on his bike.

The wind stopped. The air molecules seemed to freeze in place.

Glenn's watch sped up, the hands whirling and twirling until the contraption exploded in his hands. The gears clattered onto the floor, where they instantly rusted and disintegrated.

As if it hit a glass wall, the sun halted its position in the sky. The "glass" began to crack, cutting fissures into the sky.

Blood began to rain down from the aperture.

Daryl's head whipped up toward the sky, he saw-

_The __**fuck? **_

Roman Soldiers running into battle.

…Was that…?

_Rick? _

Wearing Centurion armor?

Rick turned from his position in the front lines and seemed to run toward the opening in the sky. His guard lowered, he was promptly beheaded by an enemy soldier.

His head flew through the crevice, where it collided with a tree to Daryl's left with a sickening _crack._

Daryl accelerated his speed, gunning the Triumph as much as he safely could.

* * *

Carol was outside, tending to Lori's grave, when the sky ripped open.

The fissures in the sky grew, branching out onto the ground.

A crack hit Carl. Carl grew old in mere moments and disintegrated into ash.

A crack hit Hershel. Hershel regressed into an embryo and vanished into nothing.

_Crack._ Shackles appeared on Michonne's arms and her dreadlocks vanished.

As did she.

_Crack._ Maggie suddenly found herself in a flapper costume, and she began to vibrate and glow.

Glenn grabbed her hand in an effort to stop her from disappearing, instead discovering himself in same-era garb and vanishing with her.

_Crack. _Beth ran out to Carol and was hit. In mere moments, she aged to an old woman in a Victorian garb before she fizzed out and vanished.

The frayed cracks encased Carol in a corner. Cradling her next to her own grave marker.

Daryl was within eyesight of the prison.

The Triumph sputtered and died, rusting into nothing underneath the Dixon.

The prison collapsed into rubble, pieces of it getting lifted into the sky where they disintegrated into fragments.

He broke into a run. Trees bursting into flames around him, some becoming aloft only to slam back onto the ground.

But none of that crazy shit mattered in Daryl's book.

Carol was in danger.

The prison fence was rusted enough that Carol merely broke it apart with her hands.

Running to Daryl, that's when it happened.

A crack hit him.

He fell to his knees. It felt like his entire body was being picked apart and reconstructed.

His clothes were altering. It all felt _wrong._

No.

_No. _

Not him too.

Carol threw her arms around him.

"I love you," she murmured into his ear.

His eyes widened, pulling away a fraction, but refrained from escaping her embrace. He hooked his left arm so it rested on her right shoulder, and his right arm on the left side of her waist.

There was a flash.

The place where they stood was now empty.


End file.
